


For All The Ghosts That Are Never Gonna

by Sunnybone



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Hurt No Comfort, I am bullshitting this WW2 AU btw, M/M, Semi-Public Sex, Yes this is Sylvain POV Yes I kill Sylvain What Of It?, blowjob, handjob, horseshoes and hand grenades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23025052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnybone/pseuds/Sunnybone
Summary: Sylvain can remember the last time he saw Felix cry—he had crumpled at the funeral around the folded flag meant to honor Glenn, and Sylvain had wanted to go to him, but he was already holding up Ingrid who was sobbing messily into his shoulder. It was the last time he saw Felix cry, and the first time he had truly let Felix down.So three years later when Felix shows up on his front step, stony-faced but with a draft notice in his shaking hands, Sylvain does not let him down.A WWII Sylvix fic in which Felix is drafted, Sylvain uses his father's connections to stick by him, and they both wind up recruited by CPT Byleth Eisner into the hand-picked squad you send out when the mission is batshit crazy and nigh impossibleForSylvain WeekDay  2: Horseshoe
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 13
Kudos: 55
Collections: Sylvain Week 2020!





	For All The Ghosts That Are Never Gonna

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosiemigosie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiemigosie/gifts).



> Please do not look too hard at the accuracy of this WWII AU, I was in the Army for a few years and I've watched some war movies and the music video for MCR's [Ghost of You](https://youtu.be/uCUpvTMis-Y), that's research enough, right???
> 
> I am apologizing in advance for Killing Sylvain in a Sylvain Week Fic, I am a bastardman and I love to suffer
> 
> (If you would like to read the kernel of Consolation Porn buried within this fic and skip Me Killing Sylvain altogether, the relevant scene starts with _“Aw, ‘Lix, come on,”_ )

Sylvain can remember the last time he saw Felix cry—he had crumpled at the funeral around the folded flag meant to honor Glenn, and Sylvain had wanted to go to him, but he was already holding up Ingrid who was sobbing messily into his shoulder. It was the last time he saw Felix cry, and the first time he had truly let Felix down. 

So three years later when Felix shows up on his front step, stony-faced but with a draft notice in his shaking hands, Sylvain does not let him down. He enlists, and uses the military contacts his father had used to keep his heir _out_ of the war to make sure he gets sent where Felix goes. It is all he can do—Rodrigue could do more, could free his only remaining son from the coming horrors, but he had fought in the Great War himself and can’t reconcile with the ‘honorable’ death of his eldest if he spares his youngest.

Sylvain hates their fathers, who dared to call _their_ war the _last_ one. 

So they ship out, they train, they deploy, they march, they live through bombings, they eat shitty rations, they sleep in the mud, all the glorious things that encompass the life of a soldier.

They fight. They kill.

Sylvain is surprised when Felix doesn’t cry; soft and gentle Felix who had cried when he found out picking flowers killed them, Felix who had wiped buckets-worth of tears on Sylvain’s childhood shirts over various tiny hurts he had deemed monumental. He is fine with taking life, cold even, controlled, and _Sylvain_ is not fine with it. Sylvain is not fine with killing, but Felix _seems_ to be. It hurts him, like something broken inside himself, like Felix had shattered some time ago and all the pieces of him are jumbling around in Sylvain’s guts, his lungs, his heart, cutting him up.

 _Sylvain_ cries.

Felix holds him.

They fight and they kill and they start getting medals. 

Felix hates _that_ , at least—the medals for ‘valor’ and ‘gallantry’. “More like a reward for doing stupid shit,” he hisses when Sylvain gets his Bronze Star (with V Device), but it’s because their medals are usually from pulling each others’ asses from the fire. Usually because their asses were there in place of _other_ people’s assess, Sylvain’s ass most often.

But they start getting medals, and they get noticed.

Captain Byleth Eisner is young and deceptively fresh-faced; he looks _too_ young to be running an elite squad of handpicked soldiers, but his ribbon rack speaks for itself, and his actual age is a mystery and running joke among his soldiers. His second-in-command, 1LT Dimitri Blaiddyd, is a bright and shiny young West Point grad who looks like a recruitment poster come to life, talks as sweet and proper as a sentient American-apple-pie, and is rumored to have gotten at least one medal for single-handedly killing a squad of Nazis...with his bare hands and a _javelin_.

When the Captain and his L.T. call them in to recruit them, Sylvain only cares that Eisner was smart enough not to try and separate them—as far as Sylvain is concerned, they are a package deal. Felix, for whatever reason, agrees to join, and Sylvain grins and slings an arm along his shoulders where he stands with his arms crossed and says, “Guess I’m in, then.”

Eisner and Blaiddyd’s oddness sets the tone for the rest of the squad; officially called the Blue Lions after their patch (a blue lion rampant), they more generally refer to themselves as Byleth’s Boys. Sylvain can’t tell if the man approves, since he’s about as expressive in the face as a department store mannequin, but he doesn’t really stop them. 

The rest of the Boys are equally odd, the only ‘normal’ one being SSG Dedue Molinaro, who is so buff he makes the L.T. look _small_ when they stand together, going over whatever new business the Captain has for them. Molinaro’s the best goddamn platoon sergeant Sylvain has ever had—he looks like he could bend steel but he’s unflappably patient, never raises his voice in anger, and seems to always know just what everyone in the squad needs. His hobbies are cooking and _gardening_ , and Sylvain teases him about what kind of flowers he’s going to grow along his eventual white-picket fence; the answer changes day-to-day, but his response is always thoughtful and measured, and Sylvain genuinely adores him.

Their medic, CPL Linhardt von Hevring, is probably the only person Sylvain has ever met who is more prickly about being drafted than Felix is; a first-generation American of German descent, he was a medical researcher before he was hauled into the war, and his passion for his research is only matched by his hatred of mud and blood and guns and killing. It makes sense, and Sylvain doesn’t blame him—Hevring does his job, anyways, and while he can be somewhat dry and sarcastic, he’s not a bad guy. He gets along well with their most boisterous member, anyways.

Caspar von Bergliez is a civilian, an unstoppable force of nature, and a German who had been part of a resistance cell captured by Nazis and slated for execution. His rescue hadn’t exactly been the Blue Lions’ priority when they liberated the prison where he was held (they’d been there for American POWs, honestly, but they weren’t picky about freeing the rest), but they had apparently made an impression on him. He had caught up with them as they had been retreating with their rescued men and demanded to join them. According to the story Sylvain is told, Byleth had looked at him for a moment, hmm’d, and that was that. 

The ‘hand-picked’ status of the Blue Lions was not an exaggeration.

But it had been a good call, because no one knows explosives the way Caspar does, and he’s the only one who seems to know how to make Hevring eat and sleep at appropriate hours, fussing and cajoling and joking at him in German. It’s almost soothing sometimes, to hear the language used pleasantly, _humanly_ , instead of just The Nebulous Voice of The Enemy.

Then there is Lorenz, _Lorenz Hellman Gloucester_ , a French officer with a rank they all ignore in favor of ‘Lorenz’, who comes off a little insufferable at first meeting but is actually...tolerable. It’s as much as Sylvain is willing to admit aloud he likes the guy, anyways, because getting him worked up is easy and amusing; he’s nice enough, though, and he’s a brilliant linguist and a hell of a fucking driver, which is important considering he’s their vehicle expert. Sylvain even finds him to be a passable chess partner—better than Felix, at any rate—and they find common ground in chatting about horses even if Lorenz laments Sylvain's terrible, American-accented French. 

Rounding off their menfolk is PFC Ashe Ubert, a sweet little freckled kid with the biggest green eyes Sylvain’s ever seen, who looks like the kind of kid who helps grannies across the street and collects pop bottles for comic book money—Ubert looks _too_ young to be in the Army. He’s also the best goddamn sniper in the whole branch, if their L.T. is to be believed. Blaiddyd beams with pride over Ubert’s service record, anyway, while Ubert turns several shades of pink and mumbles that he’s really not _that_ talented, his brother just taught him for hunting purposes and he _guesses_ he’s an _ok_ shot. The kid’s humble, and friendly, and deeply dedicated to ideals of justice, and it reminds Sylvain so much of Felix as a little kid that it hurts, but Sylvain likes Ubert all the same.

Hand-picked also means they’re a mixed-gender squad, Byleth's _Boys_ or not, though even Eisner hasn’t been able to get clearance to let women into combat. Felix scoffs that it’s bullshit, and Sylvain agrees (Ingrid has the meanest right hook he’s ever seen), but their ladies stay off the field. 

Mercedes von Martritz, a nun who doubles as their Chaplain and nurse, has the incredibly appropriate sounding nickname of ‘Mercie’, and Sylvain can’t quite imagine her wielding a gun. Their supply chief, intel officer, and Eisner’s “secretary” in name only is Annette Dominic, and while she’s a little spitfire Sylvain doesn’t _want_ to imagine her wielding a gun—she’s too nice, on one hand, and a little clumsy on the other. But she’s a ball of sunshine, and she makes Felix _laugh_ , and that alone is enough to make Sylvain love her. Leonie Pinelli should _absolutely_ be allowed to wield a gun, and has definitely done so before as a French resistance fighter, but now she’s their mechanic and weapons maintenance expert. She’s fun—good for an arm wrestle or downing a couple of beers, and she has a million stories about COL Eisner, Byleth’s father, who apparently fought near her village during the _last_ World War.

And then, last but not least, is their pilot. The introduction to that particular lady goes over like a lead fucking balloon.

It goes like this:

Felix and Sylvain standing in the general quarters of the lions bunker HQ, set with tables covered in paperwork and typewriters and radios, chairs scattered around but empty as the L.T. introduces them to each member. They’re just finishing receiving vigorous handshakes from Annette when Blaiddyd sweeps a hand towards a blonde in a flight suit who is just entering.

“And here is our pilot, Brandl.” Their heads both whip up at once, and where Sylvain is stunned, Felix is furious.

“ _Brandl_ , huh? What do you think you’re _doing_ —”

“Cool it, Felix,” Sylvain says, hand circled around his elbow before he can get in Ingrid’s face, because the emotional temperature in the room has dropped and every hostile eye is fixed on Felix. “Fancy seeing you here, instead of at _home_ , where _we thought you were_.” 

Ingrid winces, the frostiness of the room thaws, and Felix yanks his arm out of Sylvain’s hold. He doesn’t take it personally, since he knows Felix is too pissed at Ingrid to be anything but prickly. “Can we discuss this _privately_?” she asks, and the noise Felix makes is not charitable, but he follows when she steps out and leads them to a supply room.

Sylvain lets them do all the talking—shouting, really—and only interjects when things are veering towards Overly Nasty (Felix) or Physical Altercation (Ingrid). Their relationship with each other has always been different to their relationships with Sylvain, and Glenn's death had only made that more complicated—almost siblings but _not_ , and while Sylvain loves Ingrid _like_ a sister, he hadn't grown up expecting her to _be one_.

He understands that Felix's fury is a mask for terror of losing the one sibling he still _has_.

All Sylvain does is ask, far too casually, if Ingrid is flying combat missions. Her frustrated frown is answer enough, and it’s not as if he or Felix can say she _isn’t_ an incredible pilot—she’s been flying on her family airfield her whole damn life almost, she’d clearly had no trouble getting into the WASP and getting overseas, and if she wants to fly cargo or troops instead of sitting at home like a _good girl_ , Sylvain can’t stop her. Felix can’t stop her. The only person she might have listened to is dead.

But… they get over it. Or, Felix cold shoulders Ingrid and Ingrid glares at him and huffs about being childish not-quite-under her breath, and Sylvain smooths things over between them the way he always does: he gets shot. 

He gets shot saving Felix’s ass, and they send him to the back lines for a short time. It's only a flesh wound, nothing that will put him out for good and send him home, but even if it was there's not a force on hell or earth short of death that will make him leave Felix here. Not before he saw the things they have seen and will come to see in war, and sure as hell not _after_.

He spends his time between reading up on whatever intel Annie will let him get his hands on—he is supposed to be _resting_ , and she won’t let him overwork!—and flirting with Mercie. She scolds him jokingly and smiles and she is soft and sweet and beautiful... and Felix is annoyed. Sylvain really only flirts to rile Felix, who has always been riled by it, but his ire is more potent here. 

Here, in theater, Sylvain doesn't have a father, no calendar of lunches and dinners and ‘chance encounters’ with heiresses and ‘promising young women’ lined up by his parents, no one trying to chain a ring around his finger and have him breed perfect little grandchildren—he doesn't have a father watching him, sneering at how he treats Felix, how he puts him first, how he _loves_ him. 

There’s no one to give a shit if he’s been in love with Felix their whole fucking lives.

There's no one to give a shit if Felix loves him _back_.

So of course Felix is more deeply annoyed by every wink Sylvain gives Mercedes and Annette and Leonie and even Ingrid.

But he doesn't leave, and Sylvain wakes one evening from a painkiller nap and Felix is in the chair next to his bed, feet propped up on the bed frame and arms crossed over his stomach as he sleeps, and Sylvain loves him more than anything on the earth.

Felix wakes up while Mercie is changing Sylvain’s bandage and there’s that first little unguarded look, relief tied up in frustration tied up in concern tied up in _love_ , before the blast doors close behind his eyes to keep every bit of his volatile emotion contained. They keep him guarded from the outside, too, except that Sylvain has always, _always_ had the combination to crack that particular safe.

Sometimes he goes at it with a hammer and chisel, though, without meaning to.

“Aw, ‘Lix, come on,” he calls after Felix as he storms out of the infirmary, disgusted and angry and flinging words about how Sylvain _must_ be fine if he’s back to chasing skirts already. Sylvain hadn’t even been trying, really, he had just dripped his usual honey at Mercie out of reflex.

“You shouldn’t tease him, Sylvain,” Mercedes says, though it’s soft and she smiles sidelong at him. But Sylvain only sighs and flops back on the bed, staring up at the bunker ceiling.

“Nah, Felix’s stubborn; if I don’t tug his tail a little, give him something to get fussy about, he acts like I’m free to do whatever I want.”

“Well, aren’t you?” she asks in that sweet, sweet angel voice of hers, and Sylvain laughs.

“Not at all, not even a little. Not since we were kids and he cried on my shirt and got his little kitten claws in me forever.” He’s not bitter about it, because loving Felix is nothing to be bitter about. Might as well be bitter about oxygen or gravity, other facts of life he can't change or do without.

It's why, when they're out one night in some little Italian town, and Sylvain lays it on too thick with their pretty bartender and Felix slams his glass on the bar and storms out through the crowd into the street, Sylvain follows him— gravity, and when he slings an arm over Felix's shoulder and gets shoved for his troubles, he drags Felix with him as his back hits a wall and he pulls him flush and kisses him— oxygen.

And Felix, Felix, _Felix_.

Felix kisses like he's not sure if he wants to fight Sylvain or fuck him, toothy and bruising but pulling him closer with hands in his hair and half-wounded whimpers when they part for air. Sylvain pulls him further into the alley they're in, down where they can just hear the rowdy sound of the bar entrance and the light is just a whisper, and he pushes _Felix_ against the wall. Felix's pretty hair is too short now to indulge the years of fantasies he'd entertained of pulling his head back by the base of his ponytail to suck kisses into his throat, but he does a damn good job of running his fingers through it anyways, fucking up the neatly combed wave of it, groaning at the cool silk feel of it on his skin and the noise Felix makes when he grips what he can get and _tugs_.

Felix presses into his weight, grinds into him with desperate want, years and _years_ of want, and it's incredible but _not enough_ and Sylvain pulls back just enough to drop to his knees, careless of the dirt scuffing into his clothes as he nuzzles the bulge of Felix's erection through his pants. Felix's breath stutters and the muscles of his thighs go tense under Sylvain's palms, and he looks up to catch Felix's eye. He already looks fucked with his hair wrecked and his lips swollen and his eyes half-lidded and blown dark, and Sylvain brushes his thumbs along his tense thighs and says, "Tell me to stop."

Felix blinks down at him, breathing hard, and says, "Don't." It's clear but not clear _enough_ , and Sylvain gives the slightest squeeze with his hands and smiles, a flick of his tongue to wet his lips and Felix's eyelids flutter, following the movement.

"What do you want me to do?" he tries instead, and Felix opens his mouth and— says nothing, because he's always been terrible with words and _verbalizing_ , and a frustrated pinch forms between his brows before he blinks again and nods and—

Felix is bad with words, so he's learned to speak through action, and he brushes fingertips across Sylvain's cheek with one hand as he starts on the buckle of his belt with the other, and Sylvain smirks; Felix drags his thumb across the bottom of that smirk so that Sylvain groans and shifts on his knees, his pants _unbearably_ tight, and then Sylvain darts his tongue out to catch Felix's thumb as he slides his hands up to undo the belt that Felix has suddenly forgotten all about.

"Whatever you say, Sweetheart," he teases, and Felix might have said something to that but Sylvain is pulling his pants open and palming his cock through his underwear, thumbing over the telltale wet spot in the fabric in a way that has Felix's hips juddering towards him as his head thunks back against the wall. He'd like to tease and draw this out, but not as much as he'd like to have Felix in his mouth, and Sylvain is pretty positive this isn't a one time thing so he stops fucking around and pulls Felix's underwear down over his erection.

Sylvain has thought about this situation, this scenario, but it still sends a tremor of total desire through him to be staring Felix down, his cock pretty and flushed and dripping because of _Sylvain_ , and Felix makes an inquisitive noise as Sylvain's fingers on his hips tremble a moment. Sylvain just huffs a little laugh and leans forward to lick a stripe up Felix's cock, earning a groan of his name and a hand tight in his hair, and then Felix _really_ gets incoherent when Sylvain moves his mouth over the head of his cock.

Sylvain laves his tongue along the underside of his cock, savors the taste of him, the weight and heat of him, the _reality_ of _Felix_ letting Sylvain touch him like this, _wanting Sylvain to touch him like this._ Sylvain knows you don't have to love someone to fuck them, and he's been living enough years loving Felix to know you don't have to fuck someone to love them. He's been... not exactly content, but _willing_ to continue on without _this_ , accepting that Felix certainly loves him but never requiring it to be _physical_. Sylvain has two hands and an excellent fucking imagination, and he would survive. Could've survived, anyways, but there's no way in hell he's going to now that he knows how this _feels_ , knows the noises Felix makes when he bobs over him, takes him in deep, nose pressed to warm skin.

He moans out a low rumble around him and Felix hisses, his fingers scrabbling and tangling hard in Sylvain's curls and _shit_ you could drop a bomb on him right now and he would happily go off to meet his maker and thank them for _Felix_. Sylvain leans back and pulls off of him with a wet little sound, a gossamer strand of drool linking Felix's cock to his mouth like a tether, and Felix makes a pathetic noise Sylvain would literally kill to hear again.

"You're beautiful," Sylvain says, voice low and wrecked, and Felix shivers under his hands and looks down at him with his lip caught in his teeth and his face pink, a dull bruise already forming under his jaw where Sylvain had pressed tongue and teeth earlier, his mussed hair falling down over his forehead in inky spikes. He curves a hand down out of Sylvain's hair to cup his cheek, runs his thumb under Sylvain's eye to wipe away little tears of effort caught in his eyelashes like dew on morning grass. "The most beautiful thing in the world, Felix." He turns his face into Felix's hand to kiss his palm, their eyes locked, and then moves again to take Felix in his mouth.

Sylvain fucking worships, and Felix moans his name again and again like the holiest benediction and he doesn't seem to give a fuck who hears. He cries something tremulous and breathy when he comes, Sylvain pinning his hips back to the wall as he unconsciously bucks, and Sylvain swallows, pulling back to wipe the corner of his mouth with his thumb before tucking Felix back to rights while he leans against the wall and pants. He hasn't gotten to Felix's belt by the time Felix blindly tugs on his shoulder, pulling him back up to kiss him, and Sylvain leans into him with all of his weight, flattens him into the wall while he kisses him long and deep.

Felix is content with that for a moment, but then he's pushing at Sylvain's shoulders until he backs off enough that Felix can get at Sylvain's belt, slip his hand into his pants and slide his palm across his cock. Felix's other hand wraps up around Sylvain's neck to the back of his head to pull him back into another kiss, his mouth hot and open and swallowing every gasp Sylvain makes.

It doesn't take long, Sylvain's already so damn worked up from sucking Felix off, and he comes with his face in Felix's shoulder, shuddering against him. "Fuck," Felix mutters, pulling his soiled hand out of Sylvain's pants and holding it to the side as he clearly wonders how he's going to clean it off. Sylvain snickers, grips Felix's wrist and brings his hand to his mouth to lick it clean, watching Felix's reaction; Felix doesn't blink, doesn't _breathe_ , mouth slightly open and eyes glued on Sylvain's tongue sweeping across his palm, his fingers disappearing into Sylvain's satisfied smile. Sylvain, totally done licking his own come off of Felix's hand, nips playful at a knuckle and Felix blinks and sucks in a breath and comes alive again, hissing, " _Fuck_." He surges up to kiss Sylvain like he could devour him, and practically drags him back to the farmhouse the squad is using as their temporary base.

Sylvain doesn't flirt after that, not with women at least, because he knows he could weld the blast doors shut and what good is a combination or a hammer and chisel against the feet-thick-steel of Felix's wounded stubbornness?

So he keeps his honey for Felix, which is easy enough; Felix accepts it all, fumblingly, cringingly, unused to the full weight of Sylvain's affection and worried he will somehow ruin things. Sylvain reminds him that he has held Sylvain's heart for years already without dropping or crushing it, and offers to tone himself down, reel back on his displays. They lie together in another abandoned farmhouse in a different part of Europe and Sylvain combs his fingers through Felix's hair, hums because it's getting longer, and says, "I can mess up as easily as you can, Felix. Easier, probably." He's made a sport of fucking up relationships, after all, dodging wedding rings his father throws at him like hoops at a target in some carnival booth. And all it really takes for Felix to move from ginger acceptance of Sylvain's love to stubborn, clinging grip on it is the reminder of why he had held back in the first place.

Felix is cautious because his emotions run too _deep_ , and now that he has Sylvain he won't simply let him go back to being passed around like a particularly valuable family heirloom. He will not loose his hold and drop Sylvain back into his bastard father's cold, uncaring hands. He doesn't want Sylvain to tone down or reel back.

"When this is over," he says instead, "where do you want to go?"

"Bit early to be making plans, huh?" Sylvain deflects, because he still doesn't believe there is an escape from the life his father plans, not in the deepest parts of him. He's too used to fighting against it and failing, and in his mind it doesn't matter where he _wants_ to go—he'll wind up back home, under eyes he can't flee.

"The war's almost over; intel says so, Annie says so, _you_ said so."

"Almost only counts in horseshoes—"

"And hand grenades; don't give me that shit, Sylvain." Felix props himself on an elbow, looks down over him. "Where do you _want_ to go?"

Sylvain studies his face, the sharp angles of it and the tired bags under his eyes, warm and clear like polished amber in the low lamplight. "Wherever you are," he answers, truthful, and Felix reaches and strokes his cheek with a thoughtful, guarded look.

"Even if I want to go home?"

"Wher _ever_ you are," he repeats, and Felix nods and leans down to kiss his forehead, his temple.

"Good. Then we won't go home. We can travel until we feel like stopping somewhere." Sylvain nods and pulls Felix to kiss him and they move on to other things more pleasant than discussing 'almost'.

But it sticks with him; almost. _Almost_.

Horseshoes and hand grenades.

It's _almost_ two months later when he sees Felix cry again, _makes_ Felix cry.

Horseshoes and _hand grenades_.

He laughs, more of a bubbling wheeze around his own blood, and thinks he _almost_ made it.

Felix can't find anything amusing in the situation, but then again Sylvain isn't really in his right mind—he's losing blood and has outsides that should be insides and new sharp, metal insides that should definitely be outsides.

A fucking hand grenade, of all things, lobbed over the broken wall of the bombed out building they'd been using as cover from fire, and Sylvain had barely shoved Felix through a gap in the rubble and down onto the ground before it had exploded and he'd gone curiously numb. He lies where he had landed and listens to the whole world ring like a cacophony of bells, and feeling starts to return as much as he wishes it wouldn't.

Sylvain is not going to live; Linhardt is a good medic and a better doctor when he has the right supplies and space and time, but he's not a miracle worker.

Felix understands this as well as Sylvain does, crouched over him and covered in Sylvain's blood, swearing and touching his chest, touching his face, cradling his head and crying.

 _Crying_.

Dimly Sylvain is aware of Caspar shooting off loud, furious German and Molinaro's soothing tone trying to calm him, the sound of Ubert laying covering fire while the L.T. radios the Captain, grim and angry.

But none of them matter at all to _Sylvain_ , not right now, not when he is dying and Felix is sobbing over him for the first time in years.

“Hey, promise me,” he mumbles around his blood, and Felix shakes his head, squeezing his eyes against the tears rolling down his face and continuing his litany of _fuck fuck_ fuck . “ _Promise_ , Felix. Ok, Baby? Don’t chase me.”

“That’s not _fair_ ,” Felix sobs, and tears slap across Sylvain’s face like salty little raindrops as Felix rocks over him, holding Sylvain’s head and making pained little sounds. 

“Please? M’goin, want you _safe_. Love you." He waits just one rattling breath while Felix shakes his head again, and he frowns; he thinks he frowns, but feeling is starting to go a bit. He can't move his arms to hold Felix like he wants to, like Felix needs him to, to pull him in and stroke his hair and his back and soothe like when they were children and Felix was hurting. "Felix, I _love you._ Promise."

Felix glares at him even as fat drops keep pattering down on his face, his throat, and he snarls something wounded and awful, like an animal caught in a trap. "Fuck. _Fuck_ , I love you, too, I promise. Ok? I _promise_ , you bastard." 

"Ok." He coughs again, wet and choking, and when he finishes Felix wipes as much blood from his mouth and chin as he can with his sleeve, looking angry and _terrified_. "Hey, 'Lix, it's fine. I'll wait. I—" he breathes in, wet, breathes out, bubbly, "I waited m'whole life. I c'n wait yours, too." Felix makes a noise like _he's_ the one dying, and Sylvain thinks _almost, almost, almost_. "Hey." It's soft and damp, all he has left. "Kiss me?"

Felix sobs, once, a loud expulsion of breath and pain, and then he kisses Sylvain.

And then he kisses Sylvain.

**Author's Note:**

> "I am once again asking for your forgiveness for Killing Sylvain."  
> Thank you so much for reading, and I _did_ warn y'all
> 
> Fun fact I couldn't find a place for lmao, Ingrid's plane is nicknamed 'Pegasus' and has nose art of a Valkyrie babe that was painted by PFC Victor, what a sweet young man, hell of a shot, too.
> 
> After the war Ingrid stays in France with Leonie and they raise horses and are In Love. Dedue and Dimitri stick together and live in a house with a white-picket fence and a huge garden and they get married and then get married again legally when they're in like their 90s and their adopted kids and grandchildren ugly cry at the beautiful ceremony. Felix travels, never settling down anywhere, and he probably moves on but I made myself too sad by being a bastardman so I couldn't possibly tell you how.
> 
> I gifted this fic to one of my best friends because it is basically her fault, [Here is the Evidence, Your Honor](https://twitter.com/AceMorningStar/status/1233286781543624704)
> 
> Find me on Twitter [@AceMorningStar](https://twitter.com/AceMorningStar)


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